This paper presents a novel harmonic-based overcurrent relay which detects and isolates three-phase faults in a meshed microgrid. The harmonic signals are generated by two Distributed Generators (DGs) which each of them communicate with its adjacent DG. In the first step, a set of features are extracted from DG output signal and then fed to a Support Vector Machine (SVM) to detect occurrence of fault. Once the fault is detected, based on minimum voltage measured by DG, two closest DGs will recognize and these two DGs inject two distinct harmonics to activate harmonic-based relays. As each set of relays located at either beginning or end of each section is activated by current with specific frequency, these relays behave like directional relays without using voltage transformers. As a result, the proposed method is cost-effective solution. The optimum Time Dial Settings (TDSs) of these relays are obtained by solving a coordination problem with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. Real-time results are taken by OPAL-RT to show the effectiveness of the proposed method for two different locations of fault in a meshed microgrid.
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Fault location in microgrids: a communication‐based high‐frequency impedance approach
This paper proposes a novel method to locate faults in an AC‐meshed microgrid. To this end, a set of features is first extracted and selected from the measured signals and fed to a Support Vector Machine (SVM) to detect the occurrence of fault. Then, the Distributed Generator (DG) with the lowest amount of fundamental voltage, which is the closest one to the fault, injects an appropriate voltage/current harmonic. As the faulted section has the lowest impedance value from the Point of Common Coupling of the DG, the harmonic current of the corresponding line has the highest value. Based on this fact, the first candidate DG sends a notification signal to the second candidate DG, in which the fault occurs between them. Finally, the impedances in the injected frequency are measured from these two DGs and fed into a multi‐class SVM to locate the faulted line. The proposed method has the ability to locate faults for islanded and grid‐connected microgrids with variable configurations. Real‐time simulation results are taken by OPAL‐RT to show the effectiveness of the proposed method in the meshed microgrid.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1650470
- PAR ID:
- 10570795
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1049
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 1751-8687
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 1229-1237
- Size(s):
- p. 1229-1237
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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